


Ennui

by SharpestRose



Category: The Matrix (1999 2003 2003)
Genre: Gen, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-07
Updated: 2011-07-07
Packaged: 2017-10-21 03:33:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/220446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SharpestRose/pseuds/SharpestRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes she considers burning the villa down, but it would be nothing for her husband to make another.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ennui

In the beginning, there was no spoon.

Then came the dreamers, who weaved gleaming code into substance and form. A land for the Children of the Real to play in, born with silver spoons in their mouths.

Some of these Children were rebellious, and refused to be taught the lessons that the dreamers offered. When told _do not eat apple seeds, for they are poison_ , these Children would swallow the small hard pellets and see for themselves. And perhaps they learnt lessons they would not have known otherwise, but the cost was great.

And then the Children who had eaten the seeds of the red apples that grew in the land the dreamers had built decided that they wished to break down the walls that bordered the green lawns. _These spoons you have made for us are not real_ they cried, for as Children of the Real they prized this trait higher than all else. And the dreamers wept, for the silver they had fashioned to adorn the Children with was the only sort they knew, and their own dreaming flesh was made of the same matter.

But that is an old story.

There are spoons now, even if there were not in the beginning.

There are spoons to hold over flames, blue flames that shoot from jets at the push of a button and purify sensation ready for the needle. There are spoons to balance on the rim of a goblet, to hold sugar over liquor green as envy. There are spoons to scoop cake to lips, pastry laced with the most intricate of drugs.

The Children, who are constantly young and warm and vibrant, humming with living energy, use _spoon_ as slang for the way lovers lie together. The Dreamers, who have all but forgotten that this is what they once called themselves, possess this type of spoon also. Flesh is the cheapest and most abundant of distractions.

The villa has a library with a thousand first editions, Sade and Ovid and Boccaccio, and a thousand gleaming digital films to play on the large flat screens that adorn the walls like art.

Persephone's particular favourite from the film collection is Pasolini's _Salo o le 120 giornate di Sodoma_ , which she finds amusing. She would like to discuss what enchants her so about the story with her husband, but they rarely have conversations now. Such petty depravities, the desperation of the decadent rich who feel the inevitable motion of history pressing in on them. Sometimes it even makes her laugh.

She collects from others the echoes of what she no longer has. Kisses from lovers, the writhing press of bodies from those who have learnt the dances so beloved of these fresh and living Children. She had a hitman shoot her in the hand, once, but found the resulting pain ugly and boring.

The Twins have taken to seducing Agents. It's a challenge, they claim, though how it is more of a challenge than seducing humans Persephone cannot see. Still, it seems to bring them satisfaction, to slip lithely through the chinks in the willpower of these sharp and deadly programs. The Twins kill the Agents afterwards.

"Why do you bother? They are broken anyway, when you are done with them," Persephone says to the Twins.

"We don't understand," says one.

"No. We don't," says the other.

"Of course not," Persephone answers. "Those who don't believe in anything can never have their faith destroyed."

Sometimes she considers burning the villa down, but it would be nothing for her husband to make another.

"Is there any sport that would bring you out of this reproachable dullness you've fallen into?" he asks her, sipping wine as he watches a snake eat a mouse on the large screen in front of their breakfast table.

"I have played all the games we know the rules to, my love," she answers. She's drinking blood today and finding that it's no more palatable than the chardonnay from the day before, or the honeysuckle nectar before that. Perhaps she'll give up drinking, for a time, to reduce the familiarity of the experience.

Of course, this would never work. Persephone has an excellent memory.

"Rules, rules, blah blah blah blah blah. Break the rules. Make new ones. We are outlaws and rogues, rules are nothing."

"Being on the run from the law no longer makes one an outlaw. The colloquial meaning of the term implies a certain amount of rebellion, you see," Persephone says, twisting the stem of the fluted goblet between two fingers. It makes the light dance over the dark liquid.

"And we are not rebels, in your opinion?" his voice is smooth and charming. "La question est, naturellement, êtes-vous un rebelle au-dessus de votre nombril?"

"Your French is shit," she snaps in reply, clicking the glass down onto the tabletop. She likes her new shoes, loves the way they pinch her toes as she walks out of the room. The shoes remind her that she has feet to be pinched.

Perhaps he is right, though. Perhaps she has looked too long for an answer from the things she can want and enjoy. Her husband is so taken with ideas of causality, of the eternal search for the _why_ of things as a way of enlightenment, even as he lives by the philosophy of _why not_.

She will try a new game, one not so familiar and tedious. A game of endings and beginnings, of the Children who left the garden made for them.

In the end, there are no spoons, for she melts the silver down to fashion bullets.


End file.
